SAP

Social Sabbatical for Local Engagement

SAP’s Social Sabbatical for Local Engagement program is a unique, short-term, high-impact employee volunteering offering launched in 2014. The program provides SAP employees with the opportunity to work together in cross-functional teams on 6-week mixed on-site and virtual pro bono consulting engagements to solve concrete business challenges for non-profits and social enterprises in their own community.

Program Impact

158 PRO BONO PARTICIPANTS

158 SAP leaders have contributed their time and unique expertise to their communities.

9 PROJECT CITIES

The Social Sabbatical for Local Engagement takes place in nine cities across five countries.

50 HOST ORGANIZATIONS

Participants of the SAP Social Sabbatical for Local Engagement have provided support to 50 local organizations.

"SAP is excited to be on the cutting edge of pro bono and volunteer programming. We are committed to finding creative ways to use the talent of our employees as a resource that can enhance the effectiveness of organizations around the world."

Alexandra van der Ploeg
Corporate Social Responsibility, SAP

The SAP Social Sabbatical for Local Engagement program was launched in 2014 to provide SAP employees the opportunity to engage in skills-based volunteering in their own community. Select SAP employees are placed in three-person, cross-functional teams to implement six-week mixed virtual and in-person pro-bono consulting assignments that address business challenges of local non-profits and social enterprises. The program strengthens participants’ leadership, teamwork, and consulting skills while providing the unique opportunity to turn SAP’s vision of “helping the world run better and improving people’s lives” into their personal reality.

Through capacity-building projects, participants have the chance to directly support social organizations in their community and gain valuable expertise on the concept of “run simple.” Projects are selected according to their alignment with SAP’s CSR mission to “equip the world’s youth with skills they need to tackle society’s problems and thrive in the digital economy.”

Since its launch in 2014, the Social Sabbatical for Local Engagement program has fielded 158 SAP employees to support 50 local organizations in nine project cities: Berlin, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Vancouver B.C., Dublin, Sofia, Shanghai, Beijing, and Bangalore. The program continues to expand to new locations each year with Buenos Aires (Argentina); Porto Alegre (Brazil), Chicago and Palo Alto (USA), New Delhi (India) and Dalian (China) planned for 2017.